The Spokane Airport Board says it expects to select this month a consultant to update the Spokane International Airport master plan.


The current master plan was done in 1993, and needs to be updated to reflect projects that have been completed at the airport, such as new entrance roads, additional parking, and improvements to runways, taxiways, and aprons, says Spokane Airports spokesman Todd Woodard. The updated plan also is needed to reflect changes in the aviation industry and in aviation service here, such as the increased use of regional jets rather than small turboprop planes.


The board put out a call for qualifications in March and now is reviewing the four submissions it received, Woodard says. He says in such projects, the board usually receives statements of qualifications from teams that include both national and local engineering firms, which provides a mix of local perspective and national expertise.


A committee of board members and airport staff will select consultants who will be interviewed. Woodard says the board expects to award a contract for the master-plan update on May 31.


Separately, the airport expects to start a design study on the addition of a third runway within the next several years, though that plan wont be part of the planned master plan update, Woodard says. An additional runway wont be needed at the airport for 10 to 15 years, but the planning, permitting, and building process for a runway can take seven to 10 years, he says.


The initial runway design study would determine whether a third runway should be aligned with the runways at Spokane International or with those at Fairchild Air Force Base, Woodard says. The airport already owns all the land that would be needed for either option, and the required zoning already is in place, which would expedite the planning and permitting processes, he says.


The eventual need for a third runway will be based on the number of flights arriving at and departing from the airport, which has decreased slightly even as the number of passengers and amount of air cargo handled here have grown through the use of larger aircraft, Woodard says. Last year, only 115,000 flights flew into and out of the airport, compared with 119,000 flights in 1989.


In the first quarter of this year, the number of passengers traveling through the airport rose more than 6 percent, to about 703,000 passengers, from about 662,000 in the year-earlier period. During March about 264,000 passengers traveled through the airport, up 7 percent from March 1999.


Woodard attributes the increased passenger numbers to the addition of new airlines, such as United Express and America West, to Spokane International. He says that student travel for spring breaks this year also was high, and flights by fans of Gonzaga University mens basketball team, which did well in the NCAA national mens tournament, also boosted passenger numbers.


Meanwhile, air freight handled at the airport jumped more than 26 percent in March, to 6,350 tons, from 5,025 tons in March 1999. Most of that jump was due to increases in U.S. Postal Service mail that passed through the airport, a trend that began about a year ago when a second aircraft began mail-run flights to and from Spokane. For the first quarter, the amount of air cargo and mail increased about 23 percent from the year-earlier period to about 17,900 tons.


More immediately, the airport board also plans to seek a consultant to help design an addition to the airport parking garage, Woodard says. The consultant would determine how the expansion might fit into the current parking complex and whether the expansion could add inter-floor access to eliminate the one-way helixesor spiraling rampsthat vehicles now use to move between levels, he says.


Separately, the board has awarded an about $199,000 contract to Calvert Technologies Inc., a West Plains company, for a closed-circuit television system to monitor the parking garage, Woodard says. Five companies bid on the project.


The project will include installing video cameras, video recording equipment, monitors, and a control console, as well as the telecommunications infrastructure to transmit images, Woodard says. In addition, an existing system of emergency-assistance telephones in the garage will be updated. Woodard says the communications backbone of the new system will be able to support later expansions of the system into the planned garage addition. The project is expected to take 90 working days to complete.